Explores multinational banks' role in enhancing monetary credibility, revealing the importance of market confidence in an interconnected world

Under the assumption of no arbitrage exchange rate target zone credibility is tested by whether domestic interest rates fall within “rate-of-return bands” between the maximum and minimum home-currency rate of return on a foreign investment absent a devaluation. Under the assumption of uncovered interest rate parity credibility is tested by whether expected future exchange rates fall within the exchange rate band. These tests are applied on data about the Swedish target zone during January 1987-August 1990.

This book presents ten studies which combine historical narrative with econometrics to analyze the role of credibility in four monetary regimes.

The virtues and failings of market economies are at present widely debated and the outcome of the debate is of practical importance. This book contains essays that address these issues of economic policy ranging from privatisation of industry and financial markets to education and the proposal for an internal market in the health service. Apart from two theoretical pieces, particular markets, and proposals for creating such markets, are studied. The contributors are distinguished specialists in their field of economics and their analysis offers important lessons for social and political philosophy and will generate considerable interest.

the adaptation of the institutional settings of monetary policy to deal with an emerging market economy had to be carried out in the midst of an unprecedented stabilization effort and, therefore, was particularly urgent and complicated. In many of the transition countries, the transformation effort implied not just changes in procedures but the establishment of a central bank from scratch, a process that involved an important effort, precisely at a time when the whole system was in serious turmoil. While the process of reforms is not yet completed in all the transition countries, an immense amount of progress has been achieved, and many of the transition countries face today monetary and central banking conditions that are close to those of Western economies. In this volume, we collect a number of important contributions that discuss the most burning aspects of the current debates on central banking and monetary policy and draw implications for the postsocialist transition economies. The various papers included in the volume deal with a broad set of related issues, which are highly relevant not just for transition economies but for other emerging markets and for advanced economies as well. The subjects covered in the book are divided into seven major categories (Sections II to VIII), some of which overlap.

This volume examines the intersection between a new analytical approach and a real economic problem.